India’s labour force increased by 101 million between 2017-18 and 2022-23. This was largely because women’s labour force participation in rural areas increased. If new jobs are not created, such growth in labour force (part of the population working or looking for a job) usually leads to a rise in the unemployment rate. However, the headline unemployment rate has not increased in India in the PLFS series. In fact, it has decreased from 6.1% in 2017-18 to 3.2% in 2022-23. Clearly, people who joined the labour force did so because there were jobs available for them. What jobs were these? Here are five charts that show this.
